I have to make a speech to all of these important people tomorrow. When they asked if I wanted to participate in this “committee” thing, I pictured small group of people chatting around a table. Not thrown into this thing at the last minute and asked to present in the world’s scariest room, all by myself. I would not have agreed to this.

I have a 100 page paper due tonight… well loosely tonight. It’s a group thing. We agreed to turn our stuff into each other today to edit and revise before it’s due to the professor on Friday.

I have an assignment about eating disorders, that I don’t want to do. I don’t even want to open the book.

There’s more work too. Lots of it.

And I’m going out of town soon. I’m flying with Avery, it’ll be her first time. I’m nervous about that.

My new job is tough. I mean, the work itself is great, and the clients are wonderful, my boss is pretty cool… but my coworkers are difficult.

I know it’s not just them. I don’t like conflict. I try to please. I have probably been wishy-washy trying to get them to like me. My boss keeps telling me that I assume too much, that I make decisions based on people’s body language, and that things I think are obvious aren’t always. I have been listening, and paying attention to that. I stop and ask myself, did I convey or interpret that fully? Should I stop and ask for more information, or clarify something I said? Every night I go home and practice being a better communicator.

My staff, they hate things the way they are, but they refuse to make suggestions, and get mad when I make changes. My boss says I need to explain things more clearly.

I WANT to explain my ideas to my direct reports. I want to work with them as a cohesive team.

They don’t want to talk to me. I start conversations, and they refuse to engage. They walk away. They are abrupt. Or they argue. They tell me that I am wrong. That I can’t do whatever it is I am trying to do. They tell me they already have a system in place for that. One of them is especially abrasive and bossy. I’m supposed to be the supervisor, but EVERYTHING is a debate, even simple things, like asking her to wait to pass out materials for a craft until after I give directions. She wants to tell me that’s not how it’s always been done, that I don’t know what I’m doing. She argues with me in front of the children and complains about me to the parents. It’s unprofessional and ugly.

I constantly have to decided between sticking my ground as the supervisor, to run a program that I feel comfortable with, and giving in to her. The other two staff follow her. If I give in, back off and let them do as they wish, they are happy. They keep the kids happy, as long as I am not actively engaged in their activity. If I stand my ground, to do things the way I want, they refuse to help, or actively sabotage whatever I’m doing.

We have to have 30 minutes of P.E. class everyday. It has a different name, but it’s basically P.E. Right before P.E, we have enrichment time. It’s usually a craft or activity. If I am leading the craft, I can’t always stop to set up P.E. I give them a list with the name of the game we are playing and all of the equipment needed so they can get it out near the end of the enrichment time. But they never do. So I finish enrichment, and have to scramble to set up PE… they complained about the transitions being long. They either need to help, or get over it. I can’t be in two different rooms at the same time.

Last week we were playing a game that involved jumping into hula hoops arranged on the ground. I told them to leap like frogs, and was on the ground leap frogging around complete with frog sounds, crossing my eyes and pretending to catch flies. They thought it was funny, I wanted them to copy me. But the other staff, she was stomping from hoop to hoop to hoop mumbling “keep moving. keep moving. keep moving. keep moving. keep moving. keep moving. keep moving.” nothing else, not engaging with any of them, not changing her tone, not doing anything other than projecting misery and animosity across the group.

I knew if I said anything, she’d just argue with me and the kids would be left standing around to watch a completely unprofessional exchange. So I decided not to start something with her, instead I just acted sillier and sillier attempting to compensate for her dark mood. I didn’t like working with her right then either, but I tried not to let it interfere with the job I was hired to do.

It’d make an excellent example to bring up with my boss.

Except.

Then next day, I took away all the chairs. There is no reason kids should spend 4 hours sitting at desks in daycare after a full day of sitting in desks at school. I set up toys everywhere, and tried to use a group activity with blocks on the floor instead of a typical lecture style for our weekly social skills lesson. It could have been really fun and interactive… except the other three staff refused to help. They sat in the back, laughing at me. I got up to take care go something quickly, and realized the abrasive one had set her phone up and was videotaping me struggling to teach the lesson.

I have never felt so betrayed. We are supposed to be a team. I don’t know what they were planning to do with the video. When I talked to my boss she said “There you go assuming again. You just assumed inside your head that they intended to do something unsavory with that video, but you didn’t ask them.”

I don’t know how I am supposed to ask them? When she realized I had noticed the camera she ran and grabbed it, and glared at me. If she was intending to do something positive with it she wouldn’t have acted so guilty.

I was crushed, and angry.

I went into the office to text with my boss. I told her I’d go back out and finish the day. It was PE time, and raining outside, so I set up the game in an unused gym type room that my boss has used multiple times for activities on rainy days. They same abrasive staff came yelling at me that I can’t use that room. I told her we have used it before and no one has told me otherwise. If it is a problem and a facility manager brings it to my attention, I would be happy to take responsibility and relocate. She yelled that I don’t listen to anyone, and “That’s exactly what our boss talked to you about last week!” and stormed off. I told her to lead the activity then, and spent the rest of the day in the office.

My boss didn’t talk to me about anything like that last week, and no one has said anything about not using the room. The conversation that my boss DID have with both of us last week, was that she can not argue with me about every little thing because it is immature and hostile. She is NOT the supervisor, and I AM allowed to make decisions.

I spend the rest of the day hiding in the office. I didn’t even attempt to help. If I bring up her inappropriate behavior during the PE, she will just point out that my behavior after that was even more inappropriate, because I didn’t even stay out in classroom.

I messed up, not going back out there. I should have done it even though it was uncomfortable. The whole thing just broke me down so much that I couldn’t figure out how to. I tried several times to stop crying, get a grip, go out there and get through the day. I am embarrassed that I couldn’t. Supervisors should be able to suck it up.

I’m mad, because regardless of everything leading up to that, the last thing that happened before we left was me doing the wrong thing. It will overshadow everything else that happened that day. Even if my boss come in to talk to us, she will have to acknowledge that I did wrong too, which is fair. But it will be the only thing that they take away from the meeting.

I work with adult bullies and I don’t know how to fix it.

My boss doesn’t work on Mondays so she won’t be there as support or sounding board. It’s just me, with the three of them. I have cuban pastries to bring in as a peace offering. I would like to apologize for anything that’s upset them and propose a resolve to fix it.

But I am afraid they won’t be receptive.

I’m afraid there isn’t anyway to fix this at all and I will lose my job. A job that I love and worked so hard to make happen. A job that I could be really really good at.

I wish I knew how to fix it.

And work isn’t the only place I’m feeling the sting of rejection. I’m also having a hard time with my RA. She’s young, self-involved, and not very helpful. I don’t care for her. I’ve been trying to get the cable set up in my room for 7 weeks, she can’t be bothered to help, even thought EVERY other place I ask says she’s the ONLY one who can do it. It makes me feel unimportant. I asked her for help because someone had double parked my car in and I had to leave for work. She was in her room, but refused to come out. She said to call transportation. I told her I don’t use the phone, she said “just text your boss and get over it. this is really out of your control.” An hour and a half later, when I was sitting outside still waiting for transportation to come, she came downstairs and was like “You are STILL here?” YES, obviously, dumbass!

She took one look, knew who the car belonged to, knocked on his door, and he moved it. Seriously less than 3 minutes of her precious time is all it took. Had she just done it when I asked her for help, I wouldn’t have even been late for work.

Tonight, she was having a game night, and I decided to go. My coworkers can’t get over their distaste for me, and I decided I didn’t want to act the same way towards my RA. I decided to go to support her by going to her game night and having a good time. I got there and she was playing X-Box with another RA. I said hi, but she never even acknowledged me. I waited for an hour for the game night to start, but no one else came, and she kept pretending like I wasn’t there, so I left.

Crushed.

My mom always said, when you are having problems with everyone around you, take a long hard look in the mirror and realize that YOU are the problem.

I want to fix me.

I don’t want to be the problem.

I feel so beat down and rejected. It’s hard to find the confidence and courage to keep at it anymore. At work and with my RA…. I show up, expecting to be the punching bag these days.

I found a Bikram studio right by my work! I signed up for 4 months unlimited and have taken a few classes. It’s a wonderful, adorable little studio. There are WAY less people than the one I just moved from, but a hot room is a hot room, and this one is always filled with sweaty yoga loving folks. I love it!

I have SIX classes, and I’m working almost full time. I was hired for 30 hours/week, but I’m allowed to work up to 40. I’m overwhelmed a lot.

It’s hard to persuade myself to make the time to practice, because other things seem more critical. The fact is, without yoga in my life, I morph into a mean, cranky and less productive person.

The situation with my co-workers is still miserable. I left work crying tonight… most nights. I sit awake at night, trying to make it better. My boss has assured me that my co-workers are a tough group, but I still feel like a horrible supervisor. It makes facing the mirrors difficult… and important. I’m convinced that the solution to my office problems will materialize after camel one day.

I need school. I need work. I need food. And I need yoga. It’s not just a hobby. I am really happy to be getting to know a new yoga family in my new city. I feel more grounded here now.

I haven’t written in a long long time. I dunno, I guess I needed some separation from this blog for a while.

But tonight, I need to write. I need to get the thoughts out. I moved. I’m living in the dorms, studying rec therapy, working in the field. Everything actually worked out.

I just have the biggest pit of doom in my stomach though, like something terrible is about to happen. I hate making mistakes, but sometimes it feels like that’s all I do. My new co-workers, they are tough. I don’t think they like me much. I keep trying to fix it. Every time they get up the courage to complain to me, I listen calmly, and work honestly to fix what they dislike. I try my best not to get mad or defensive. My boss is pretty neat. She’s got tons of experience, and she’s great at what she does. Some days we chat and laugh a lot in the office, but other times I get the feeling she doesn’t like me too much either.

It just seems like I can’t do anything right. At the campout, I locked my keys in my car and everyone sat up waiting for AAA to come until 2 in the morning with me. Yesterday, I went to have lunch in my office, and my purse wasn’t there. My co-workers and I searched everywhere but couldn’t find it, so we asked the manager to watch the security tapes. He says he saw me walking in with it, but no one went into my office besides me and my own staff. They never saw it leave the room. The only way to replace the prescriptions that I keep in there is with a police report, so we had to fill one out. The officer who came has a toddler recently diagnosed with Autism. She asked a lot about my program. I was able to give her some local resources and took her out to meet some of my kids. One of the kids got Powerade Zero on my legs and I ended up having to leave work early since without my bag, I didn’t have any allergy medications. I went straight from the office to the student health center where Dr. V helped me out. She’s the best person that I’ve met down here. Before I even got to campus, she was working on replacing my EpiPens, and helped my legs stop burning. I stayed with her for a while then went back home.

… only to find my missing bag safe in my kitchen. I was so relieved! Even though I missed 2 hours of work, stressed everyone out, and paid for new EpiPens, I felt much better knowing that it was all there and OK. I feel like maybe it was one of those G-d things, and I was supposed to meet her.

I miss yoga a lot. I tried to take a class on campus last week. It was cold yoga in the dark, very slow, no back bends… mostly just laying around on the floor in positions I usually sleep in. I never felt any stretch. At the end, we were laying there in savasana, and the instructor came to stand over me, one leg on either side of my body… I pretty much freaked out. I hit him.

I’ve been jumpy around people lately. More so than I have in a really long time. I walked out of a doctor’s appointment on campus because he got too close. Yesterday, I was waiting for a friend in the break room at her office, and a guy walked in and closed the door…. so I left. Dr. V thinks that it’s PTSD but I’m not convinced.

I am awake right now. I’ve been both eating and sleeping less.

I just feel off, like something is very very wrong.

I need yoga. Real yoga. Nice, predictable, Bikram yoga. I need 90 minutes in front of those mirrors to deal with myself. I mostly like it down here, but I’ve lost touch with me. Yoga will help. I found a studio near my work. I just have to get brave and go now.

I’m not gonna lie, I was DEAD SET AGAINST wearing a shirt advertising my very personal information to an event expected to draw a quarter million people….

But somehow, it happened anyway.

I WORE THE SHIRT!!!!!!

And it was amazing! I am so proud of myself for doing it!!!! I’m exhausted and electrified right now. I am too tired to take care of the things I need to and too fired up to sleep! Every muscle, bone and joint in my body aches from standing and talking about the project.

Putting the shirt on was one of the scariest things I have ever done! I was afraid of what might happen. But honestly… I don’t think most people even read it. If they did, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Only two people said anything, one woman laughed, told us they were brilliant and asked who thought up what to write on each one, and the other lady told us she thought we were really brave to wear them and she could tell we were doing good things for the community, then she voted for us.

Mostly, we were too busy working together to worry about labels on the shirts… or the people inside of them. We were just people, wearing shirts, and making art.

I have always had a hard time feeling like I could do anything well.
Yes, even as an internationally ranked Olympic level athlete at 14, I still felt inadequate.

When I told DB I thought I could picture myself working at Shake-A-Leg, something in me changed. I had real direction. Any thing I was doing wasn’t to benefit a vague future ideal, everything became a step in the process. It’s pushed me to be more responsible, proactive, and willing to speak up.

I want it more than anything.

I had a plan in my mind. I need three internships to graduate. So I wanted dolphin therapy in the keys, FSDB for the short ones and Shake-A-Leg for the long one. Except, it’s all messed up now. FIU, as we well know, sucks at communication. I was somehow registered for classes without even having an advisor assigned, much less talking to one. My first two internships are supposed to be THIS summer. That’s not even enough time to apply for the dolphin one. They have so many “if/than” rules and basically it works out like this. I can only use Shake-A-Leg for the 4 week internship, and then I MUST do a 4 week clinical internship… and my ONLY option for the clinical is an inpatient psych unit, that used to be an ED treatment center and would still be a VERY bad environment for me. I talked to DB about it this afternoon, and she was more direct that she’s been in a really long time. There was no “what do you think?” or “Is there a way to make that work?” it was just “NO. Do not do that.”

I asked the internship coordinator a million different ways today. I can give up Shake-a-leg, and do both sections of the internship with the dolphins. That wouldn’t suck.

I just… I did all this for Shake-a-leg. It’s what I want more than anything.

I can’t believe I’m about to lose it.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s pretty much how things tend to go for me.